User blog:ISAAC Organization/High Flight
"High Flight" The poem "High Flight" isn't very well known... except maybe in the circles of airplane pilots... ...or to us old timers who were fortunate enough to stay up to midnight back in the 1960's and 1970's, and we watched the television stations as they actually 'signed off' for the night, and stopped broadcasting anything except static. The year is 1970... ... the Apollo Moon landings are underway... ... and a small, sickly five-year old boy has been watching them all. His attention hangs on every grainy black and white image broadcast from the surface of the Moon, and on every word the astronauts say. He sneaks out of his bedroom just before midnight, and silently creeps down the hallway to his family's living room. If he is quiet enough, he can turn on his family television without getting caught. He quickly adjusts the brightness knob to darken the TV screen to near black. Sitting a scant foot from the screen, with the sound turned all the way down, he waits for the midnight hour. Then, finally, at midnight... ... after the last show finishes for the night... ... one last movie comes on... ... a short, two-minute film... ... and it begins every night at midnight... A small military fighter airplane appears on the screen. It streaks down the runway, picking up speed, and finally lifts off, climbing with strength and grace into the beautiful blue sky. The little boy's excitement bursts inside him as he watches, wide-eyed with fascination. Turning the volume knob up ever so slightly he hears the sounds of the jet fighter's powerful engines, pushing the plane faster and higher. His heads turns slightly, his ear cocked towards the single speaker on the television, and his eyes drink in the images that play on the TV screen before him. The tiny white aircraft climbs and banks and streaks through clouds of cottony white. And the narrator begins, "Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings. Sunward I’ve climbed, And joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, And done a hundred things you have not dreamed of. Wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there, I’ve chased the shouting wind along, And flung my eager craft through footless halls of air. Up... up the long, delirious, burning blue, I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace, Where never lark, or even eagle flew. And while with silent lifting mind, I’ve trod the high untrespassed sanctity of space. Put out my hand.... And touched the face of God." Goosebumps dot the boy's forearms. His eyes wide with fascination from seeing the short two-minute movie. He's seen the same movie almost every night for weeks; months even. He intends to watch it again tomorrow night at midnight, if his parents don't catch him. The little boy's mind, still filled with amazement, imagines flying along with the airplane pilot. He knows, truly knows, that pilot is a true expert in the air. Scott Peterson was the pilot's name. He was a United States Air Force test pilot, and he later flew aircraft for NASA. The words read by the narrator are a poem, named "High Flight". That poem, which the little boy listened to every night, was written long ago, back in 1940; by Royal Canadian Air Force pilot [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gillespie_Magee_Jr. John Gillespie Magee Jr]. At the age of 18, John Gillespie McGee, Jr left the United States and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, determined to learn to fly. He had set his mind to help fight the Germans during the early days of World War II. He became a pilot, and soon travelled to England to help the British battle the invading Germans. He wrote poetry about the feelings he experienced while flying in the beautiful wide-open breath-taking skies above the United Kingdom. He mailed some of those poems to his parents back home. Tragically, only one year later (in 1941), John died during an aircraft accident, caused by poor visibility due to fog. He was only the tender age of 19. Tens of thousands of pilots have read or heard John's poem, "High Flight", and they all say it perfectly portrays what they feel when they fly. The pilot in the short movie, Scott Peterson, really can't be Google'd or Yahoo'd on the internet very well. His flying career is quite hard to research. It pretty much all happened before the digital age. The little boy found a book at his public library about NASA; and he read about rockets, and outer space, and about Scott Peterson. It's sad that kids today don't get the privilege of doing certain things, like what happened years ago. Everything is right there, ready for them to access. Sometimes the search and the adventure is half the fun. As the little boy grew older, he realized that the words of "High Flight" fit perfectly with the adventure of astronauts. It captures the launch of a rocket, its ascent, and the glorious achievement of it reaching orbit. As the boy grew up, he dreamed of being an astronaut; of "slipping the surly bonds of earth..." ... but that dream never came true. Yet he took immeasurable joy in reading and re-reading the poem, and of watching the two-minute movie a hundred times over. In his mind, his body was strong and he did all the things the astronauts did. His illnesses couldn't prevent him from walking on the Moon with each of the Apollo crews. His small frame mattered not as he guided each majestic Space Shuttle into orbit and flew them back to Earth again to a perfect landing... ... and he does all these things again... ... as he pilots the rockets of Space Agency. Luckily, Youtube has the two-minute movie up for those interested: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6uGP74qRzSc High Flight] You might like it too. Category:Blog posts